In 2012 I Will…

With the New Year around the corner, that infamous time of resolutions doomed to be broken, I thought I’d get a jump on the game and make mine.

I have – drum roll please – One.

Yup. One resolution. But it’s a big ‘un.

Finish a book.

August 21, 2008 is the date of a journal entry in which I stated that I finished writing Endless, a vampire WIP that has never seen the light of day. Why? Because it wasn’t really finished. Sure, I completed a first draft, but then it went into the drawer and stayed there.

November 3, 2008. Another entry about “finishing” a book. This one, Sacrificial Lamb Cake. A religious satire that falls more into the absurdist genre. Again, wrote a first draft and stuck it in a drawer.

Then, a series of unfortunate events lead to the loss of both manuscripts – both hard copy AND digital versions. All that work, gone. Now I really had no chance of finishing them.

Up until now, I’ve written several short stories, even published a few, and started outlining innumerable novel ideas. But none of them came to fruition.

I blame it on a lot of things, but above all, laze. I’m an instant gratification kind of girl. Flash fiction immediately appealed to me because I could settle into my zone and bang out a first draft in an hour. It would be far from perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than busting my ass for months to get a first draft of a book – then to have to think about editing…

I’ve said before that I’m a short story writer, so why do I give a damn about writing a novel? Because I know I can do it. I’ve done it before. I just didn’t follow through. I also didn’t have the tools that I have now. I joined the writers group that I’m part of a month AFTER I finished Sacrificial Lamb Cake. Everyone was so much… better than me. I truly thought I wasn’t up to the task. But that’s a cop out.

Now, I have two years of studying, reading, writing, writing, writing, and more writing under my belt. So yea, it’s time. And you know what? I think I have the perfect WIP for it. I may not sell it. Oh well. I’m not worried about that yet. I’m worried about getting the words on paper, making the pages bleed, then wiping the blood clean to reveal a polished, finished, manuscript. And no, I’m not even going to put a December 31, 2012 deadline on it. I hate deadlines. Loathe entirely. I know that setting one will turn me off the project out of spite.

So, I resolve to bang out chapters the way I bang out short stories. To push myself to try things I’m scared won’t work, and – to quote Jack Ketchum – not look away from it.